A Hue Defiant and Brave
by Nubushi
Summary: The man who tried to wipe out humanity. The woman who almost killed him trying to stop him. They circled around each other like gossamer-winged butterfrees, forever circling, unable to touch. Mangaverse. One-sided Yellow/Lance. For the WA Flower Challenge.


It was the sort of blustery March day that dragons liked to sport in, the kind with overcast skies that made even the bricks of Celadon look dull. Yellow pulled her jacket collar up against the wind, casting a doubtful eyes at the pewter clouds—unable to keep herself from looking. Windy days meant dragons. And thoughts of the dragon master, whom she had sent plummeting down from the skies and left for dead, followed on that thought with the inevitability of spring following winter. News of him was something she caught in little glimmers from Silver and Gold, but in the ten years since then, she had never seen him.

She couldn't stop wondering. What was he doing now? Had he really changed his mind about pokemon and humans, or was it just the resignation of defeat? Now that they were no longer fighting on opposite sides, could they talk to each other, not as enemies, but just as two human beings?

She pushed these thoughts aside with a shake of her head, lengthening her stride to hurry to her lecture class—and it was then that she saw it. A small figure on a dragon in the distance, riding an air current down in an expert curve. Her heart thumped rapidly in her chest. Startled, she wondered if she was mistaken, but broke into a trot in the direction of the place the dragon had looked like it was headed.

She didn't have to go all the way to the outskirts where the dragon had landed to find him; by the time she had reached that side of town, he had already reached the bustling streets of Celadon.

But she almost didn't recognize him.

His outfit was so nondescript, like what any other young professional would wear, his hairstyle—cut shorter and dyed black—that she almost lost him in the crowd of other working men and women filling the gray city street.

That it seemed like he didn't want to be recognized might have been more than just Yellow overthinking things.

"Lance?"

She called out half in disbelief, heart beating rapidly with the unexpectedness of it. After the battle at Cerise, she had never, really, been able to stop wondering about him.

What did a man do with himself who had tried to wipe out the human race and failed?

At the sound of her voice, he turned to look at her over his shoulder, and then there was no doubt anymore. No one else had eyes like that. Eyes like a dragon's, molten gold.

He didn't reply but stopped to wait. Yellow hurried to close the distance, weaving around office workers returning from lunch break, panting when she reached him.

"I never expected I'd see you here," she said, flushed. "How have you been doing? . . . What have you been doing?"

Wordlessly he reached inside his jacket pocket, opening a slim case and showing her its contents.

Yellow gaped in amazement, unable to manage more than a surprised "Oh!"

"I thought it would be a good way to do something to prevent some of the worse abuses that humans are committing," he said, breaking his silence at last. He looked at her a little askance, not welcoming, but not hostile, either, waiting for her reaction. Slipping his badge back into his jacket, he asked, "So what are you doing?"

"I haven't quite finished my schooling yet," she said, "but I'm studying to be a teacher. I thought it would be a good way to raise young people to treat pokemon with love and respect."

He nodded, expression unchanged. "That doesn't surprise me." An expression slipped across his face that was less a smile than the shadow of something that died before it was born, and she noticed the darkness under his eyes that hadn't been there before.

"I'm really glad we could finally meet again," she said. "I mean, not as enemies." He grimaced a little, but her eyes saw it without its significance entering her mind. "I heard a little bit about you from my friends, but I always thought it would be nice if we could just talk together normally sometime . . . actually," she added sheepishly, "I have a class I have to go to now, but it would be nice if we could get together sometime. You know, catch up?"

There had not been any answering enthusiasm in his face as she talked; by the end, she had started to feel a little bit desperate, sensing she was flinging herself forward in a hopeless endeavor.

He cocked an eyebrow skeptically, an expression that looked like he thought her a little strange. But to her surprise, "If you want to," he said.

Sliding into her seat in class, she couldn't keep herself from pulling out her pokegear one more time, looking at the new number registered there.

After class was over, she sent him a lengthy text. It was a surprise, but it had been really nice to see him. She had heard about the way he helped out her friends, and she hoped they could be friends now. It would be nice if they could meet sometime.

His reply was simple: "When do you want to meet?"

He was busy with work. She was busy with university. But somehow, around the time the cherries were blooming, they found a time that worked—and then once every month after that, never more and never less.

* * *

One November, they met in a newly-opened café that served pokemon as well as their trainers, one of several of the sort cropping up throughout Kanto.

Stroking the satin fur of Chuchu, who had promptly curled up in her lap upon arrival, she watched in curiosity as Lance removed a pokeball from his belt and pushed the release button. Light coalesced into flame, and then into swirls of the orange and black fur of a canine standing a meter high at the shoulder. The arcanine gave a joyous bark and showed signs of wanting to jump, but Lance curbed him with a stern, "No, sit."

The arcanine sat, its plumed tail furiously sweeping the floor, looking at Lance in fawning adoration.

"Good boy." He took the next few moments to bury his hands in his arcanine's ruff, scratching its neck and down its back, then straightened, turning his gaze back to Yellow.

Yellow had propped her chin in her hand as she watched Lance interacting with his arcanine. She liked seeing this side of him. Long ago, she had come to an important realization about him, which this reminded her of. Back when she had still been in love with Red, she had admired him for his care for pokemon, the rapport he had with him, the way he had freed her heart from fear and opened her to the limitless possibilities of what humans and pokemon could achieve together. But one day—she didn't know how—it had occurred to her. As much as Red loved pokemon, as much as he cared about them like his own family, he was still pursuing goals that were, in the end, his own. There was only one person who had devoted his whole life to working, not towards his own goals, but for pokemon and for what was best for them.

Lance.

As misguided as she had believed him to be, he had given his whole life as a sacrifice for what he believed to be the best for the creatures that humans shared this world with. Once she saw that, the difference was like learning that the earth revolved around the sun, not the sun around the earth. It changed everything.

Once she realized that, she could never settle for Red—and that was why, when the other trainer at last worked through his own ignorance (realizing that Yellow was a girl) and denseness (realizing that she was important to him) and awkwardness (asking her out on a date), she couldn't do anything but smile, and shake her head, and say no in as gentle a way as she knew how.

"You got him through your work?" she asked.

He nodded an affirmative. "I always wanted one, though." His smile was slight, controlled—and that was how he always was these days, seeming unable to express things like joy or triumph freely, as if the source of them within him had shattered—but the warmth of it touched his eyes, and that was rare.

They talked about their jobs, mostly. Lance's references to what he did were guarded and careful, but even the things that he was able to disclose gave her glimpses into a world of darkness. Abuse. Abandonment. Pokemon mills churning out creatures that should have been cherished companions en masse like commodities, in conditions barely above, or sometimes actual, neglect. Pokemon's minds being twisted to serve the corruption of their human masters. Pokemon who were tortured in experiments.

She forced herself to put on a smile over the ache that it always gave her, listening to Lance's stories of crime. And when it was her turn to share about her student teaching, she made her tone sunny, chattering about the boy who always pronounced the name of his famous species as "charmamber," the girl who wanted to live on a farm and own one of every species native to Kanto, which she was convinced she would keep out of their balls all the time, never minding what her parents told her about the cost of food.

"She says she'll marry a rich heir and the two of them will live happily ever after together with their hundred and fifty pokemon."

"Well, that's what girls typically want, isn't it? To get married and start a family?" he asked, amused.

"I guess so." She shrugged. "I never . . . well, I can say that I never wanted to get married just for the sake of being married. There has to be someone special enough that I want to marry him, first."

"Don't you have someone like that, though? Red, wasn't it?"

She smiled and shook her head. "Didn't you hear? He and Misty got married last year."

"Oh?"

"They're expecting, too." Her eyes went a little distant, but it was with an easy acceptance that she added, "I'm happy for them."

"Well, I guess I should be grateful—if you start seeing someone, we probably won't be able to meet together like this anymore."

She looked up at him, trying to sense what he meant by it. Was he trying to suggest that he enjoyed being around her? Could it be an opportunity for them to meet together more? But his face was too neutral; she couldn't tell.

"And here I thought that you were just humoring my selfish request, meeting together like this," she said with a laugh.

"It's . . . very important to me," he said, looking down into his coffee dregs. Only looking back on the conversation later, in hindsight, would Yellow notice the difficulty with which he pronounced the words, the strain in his face. "Being able to hear what you are doing lets me see the brighter side of things, that there are still pure-hearted people out there. It helps balance things out."

Her heart leaped. "Then why don't we meet together more often?" she asked eagerly. "If you want to . . ."

"I don't." She looked up at him wide-eyed, startled at the abruptness of it.

"But you said . . ."

"Yellow," he said with a voice of rigid control, "Just being around you this much is all that I can bear."

"But why?" she asked, tears starting to form in her eyes.

Because I remember what I did to you." His voice was grating, harsh. Lance looked up to meet her eyes, his eyes blazing yellow and full of intensity—but one that was hard and alien, completely closed to her. There was a sudden hush in the restaurant; faces turned, and then were averted again just as swiftly.

The tears were streaming down her face now as she stared at him in shock, unable to reply.

She remembered it, too: the moment in the heart of the volcano of Cerise, when his dragons had attacked her with the intent to kill, when a ring of flames bloomed around her like a long-petaled flower. Even then, in the searing agony of that heat, there had been a space in the very center, where she stood, where there was no flame. At the center of the ring, she was buffeted by heat, but she herself was untouched by the flames.

She had understood as clearly as she knew her own name that even believing that he wanted to kill her, that he was going to end her life there, he simply could not bring himself to do it.

Like a shaft of light piercing through clouds, she had understood the tender and pure-heartedness which were buried there beneath his rage—a rage which was like flames dancing on the surface of water, a lashing out in pain.

Why couldn't he see that himself? Why couldn't he acknowledge his own goodness?

Why couldn't he accept her forgiveness?

That he couldn't was an agony more intense than the blast of fire had been.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. His face as grim as she had ever seen it, he stood. He turned to go, but not before leaving a payment on the table for both of them—so like him, to show consideration even in a time like this. Yellow bent her head to bury her tear-streaked face in her arms.

She was sure, afterwards, that she had ruined everything. She had pushed him too hard, towards an emotional release he wasn't yet capable of. And after a scene like that, was there any reason to think he would want to meet again? There was only a too-short exchange of texts ("I'm sorry." "You don't need to apologize.") and then an interminable wasteland of anxious waiting. Days, whether studying or gardening or fishing, when she could never wholly focus on the task at hand, nights when she tossed restlessly, full of guilt despite what he said.

She had almost given up hope when his phone call came again.

"Do you still want to meet again?"

The question was abrupt, but the tone uncertain, more deferential than she had ever heard him. Yellow thought of Lance, standing on the knife's edge of pain, staying in the heat of it as long as he could bear, swallowed her own, and accepted.

* * *

The planet circled around the sun. Yellow and Lance circled around each other like gossamer-winged butterfrees, forever circling, unable to touch. Sometimes, she felt more like she was pouring her feelings into a bottomless abyss like the ocean waters rushing into a gaping, rocky hole, or like the planet hurtling through space and time towards its eventual destruction.

She got a job, bought a house. Students grew up and left her class, and new students came to replace them.

In her new garden, she planted wild daffodils. Pushing the dark soil over the bulbs with her hands, Lance's face floated before her mind. She saw him in everything, everything made her think of him, but there was something about these flowers in particular that reminded her of Lance—the way the dark yellow petals of the central trumpet thrust out fiercely, defiantly. Lance had been like that, once. Pushing forward with an energy so enormous it was terrifying, fighting for what he believed justice was even if the entire world disagreed with him. Now, he was fighting on the same side as the establishment, of the same society that had condemned him before. There was something about it that was unlike him, and she wasn't sure whether to be happy for him or sad.

She sighed, brushing the dirt from her pants as she rose.

The next spring, and for all the springs that followed that, she would think of him every time she looked at the daffodils in her garden.

* * *

By the time another ten years had passed, the pain that once seared like a burn had subsided to a dull, continual throb. She wasn't happy, but there was an almost-comfortable familiarity to it, knowing now that this was what her life was.

By the time ten more had passed, she had reached a state of quiet resignation. She had learned not to push for more of Lance than she could have—had come to realize that he was not hers to have, anyways, and he was not capable of doing any more than what he was.

Through it all, they still met every month.

As Lance's salary rose, the class of the restaurants they met in every month changed, too. One October, pursued by a breeze full of five-fingered little red leaves like dying flames, they met in a place that was dimmer, quieter, talked over scallops and wine, neither of them really caring anymore what people thought their relationship might be.

The gentle lighting was not enough to hide the lines becoming apparent on Lance's face, as they would appear on Yellow's soon enough, she supposed. But although they were mostly lines of care, his eyes were softened by the lines forming in their corners (that faint smile of his that touched his eyes but not his mouth) as he listened to Yellow's stories about her schoolchildren. It was a smile that had both become softer and more transparent over the years. There was a warmth in his eyes that was more than a mere illusion caused by the dim incandescence of the room.

As time passed, she had come to understand what these meetings meant to Lance. Working in secret to arrest criminals who abused pokemon or used them for fraudulent ends, Lance was always looking into the darkness of human nature. Even in Yellow's work, there were children who were troubled, but overall, she was always surrounded by and gazing at hope, promise, the inherent goodness of people. It was like the two of them were standing back to back on the moon at the border between night and day, Lance staring into an abyss of endless night, Yellow gazing out at a never-ending dawn. It was the warmth of Yellow standing at his back, the reminder of brighter things, that allowed him to keep his ceaseless vigil.

She no longer asked Lance why they couldn't spend more time together. She had never said it directly, but Lance knew something of her yearning for him, knew she wished to be together more. But they had reached a stage where it wasn't necessary to say these things. They both knew what the other person wanted to say, and what their answer would be.

She closed her eyes briefly, turning the problem of Lance's pain over in her mind for the thousandth time, searching within for an answer.

"Lance," she said, but it was not her old question that she returned to. "Isn't it time you forgave yourself?"

But his mouth hardened and his eyes grew cold.

She had gained enough skill at swallowing her sorrow that she could hear his reply dry-eyed this time. Sighing quietly, she accepted the pain—after all, it was the same dull ache that was with her always.

By the time she reached home, the breeze had picked up and become a chill wind, trying to tease her hair—some years back, she had started wearing it up—out of its confinement.

But the tears it brought to her eyes were not entirely the wind's fault. Before unlocking her door, she let her gaze rest on the barren flowerbeds where the daffodils grew.

"Pride," she whispered, bitterness bringing the words to her lips.

But somehow, despite it all, they still kept meeting. The moon circled the earth in eternal chastity. Summer was followed by autumn, and then by winter. The daffodils bloomed and died again a score of springs and more.

The news came just when it was time for them to burst into silent declamation once again.

Numb with shock, she dressed in black, stood in line with the others. The chanting, the smell of the incense she offered in turn, the photograph on display—larger than life, of Lance at a time when he was young, before he even dyed his hair black, when everything about him was like a flame, fierce, cocky, full of life—were incomprehensible to her, a strange dream from which she must surely awaken.

Feeling it was not enough time to say goodbye, she visited his grave alone, taking time to walk through Viridian, looking around her at the tentative unfurlings of green, letting the smells of the forest seep into her. He had left a will insisting on being buried in his birthplace, it seemed—and there was something about that that reminded her of the old Lance, stubbornly following his own path whatever others thought.

Her feet came to a halt when she reached the gravesite. Yet again, and after everything, she could not understand how a man so full of passion could be reduced to ash, how he could lie within the cold stone. It was in a small clearing, with no trees nearby. The ground was still hard, the grass brown. It seemed too cruel.

Pushing the bitterness down within her, as she had done so many times, she placed the palms of her hands together and closed her eyes.

She didn't know how much time she spent there praying, but her head snapped up when a keen, piercing cry like that of a bird of prey pierced the air. An enormous white bird, shining with light, circled the air above.

For a moment, the whole clearing was filled with a luminous glow, and there was green shooting up from the ground, grass growing like ripples spreading in water, with Lance's gravestone at the center. And then there were stalks and leaves thrusting up like spears—and then they bloomed into yellow trumpets, each surrounded by a ring of outer petals like a halo.

Something in her heart that had been frozen thawed, and she found a smile on her face for the first time since that day.

"Thank you, Lugia," she said.

* * *

Ten years later, she still visited him, a figure making its solitary way through Viridian Forest. Though her hair was beginning to silver, her back was straight and her steps, though slower than before, hale and sure. She followed the forest paths with the assurance of long familiarity.

Reaching her destination, Yellow looked over the field of yellow flowers surrounding the solitary grave. Always before, she had thought of the daffodils as being like Lance with their bellicose pride, the defiance with which their leaves sliced up through the cold ground of spring.

But it was also a little, she thought, like surrounding him with herself: with her color, with her life. It was what she had always been yearning for, she realized—to surround him more with herself, as if she could heal his brokenness as simply as holding a broken-winged pidgey in her hands.

The bitterness of regret at not being together more had been with her for so long. It was like a salt ocean inside her, ebbing and flowing but never silent. Now it lay quietly, like a still sea at low tide, little waves brushing against her like the fingers of a child.

But now, despite everything, despite all his protestations, she _was_ with him always, a yellow field of wild daffodils embracing the grave where he lay.

She smiled at the thought, found that she felt Lance would understand, now, that it was all right to be forgiven, that he wouldn't mind the closeness.

An old woman now, she had passed through the phase of not needing to say things because they could be understood without words. Now she could say anything she wanted without fear. She smiled again, brushing a lock of hair, silver mixed with gold, from her face.

"I still love you, Lance. I always will."

* * *

A/N: Written for the WA Flower Challenge. My prompt was narcissus (daffodil), meaning egotism and unrequited love. The variety that Yellow plants in her garden is wild daffodil / Lent lily (in Japanese, "trumpet daffodil"), which according to the Japanese hananokotoba website is the one specifically associated with unrequited love.

Title is an oblique reference to a line from the George Herbert poem "Virtue": "Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave / Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye; / Thy root is ever in its grave, / And thou must die." I modified it a bit to suit the flower and the story.

The flower challenge can be found here:

topic/2872/179169211/1/Game-Flower-Language-Challenge-Deadline-February-2-and-Winner-of-Drabbles


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